


onerariis tuto

by greyingwarden



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon), 悪魔城ドラキュラ | Castlevania Series
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Multi, Not Season 3 Compliant, Not slow burn but also not fast burn. its like a solid medium burn, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rating May Change, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-01-16 22:00:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21278399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyingwarden/pseuds/greyingwarden
Summary: Just as they start thinning the crowd, Trevor dripping with sweat and viscera and exhaustion, another wave appears and he curses loudly. Despite his failing vision, he can see Sypha faltering, can see Alucard’s unnatural paleness and the shaking in his hands. It hits him, then, like jumping into a river in the middle of winter. It chills him to the bone and makes his heart clench with an emotion he does not want to name. He fights with a renewed vigor, if only to make time.He’s starting to lose it, lose time, lose himself to the repetition of slashing and slicing and stabbing.Or: in which the trio is thrown backwards and, unfortunately, can't keep things a secret.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT: previously "vita et mors et renascentiam". i changed my mind in less than 24 hours lmao

It happened in flashes. They had been ambushed and it had all too quickly fallen to shit. They were all exhausted from prior battles; Sypha was waning quickly, magic fairly spent from fighting and healing the major wounds dealt to him, a gash on her temple still steadily bleeding. Alucard needed to feed and, despite their arguments, refused to feed from either him or Sypha while they were still injured. As for Trevor, he was dealing with a pained chest and shallow breathing, likely from some sort of fracture to his ribs, from a few too many hits that he wouldn’t allow Sypha to heal just yet. All he had wanted to do was sit his ass in front of a merry fire with Sypha and Alucard next to him and sleep until all his hurts had lessened.

Instead, here they were, weary and drawn thin, fighting another group of Carmilla’s lackies for the third time that night. She’d been growing more and more irritated with them as time went on and they disposed of every soldier and hell beast she sent after them. At first, Trevor thought it was some sort of fucked up test, but now… now, whatever usefulness they might have had to her was squashed under her desire to remove them from the land of the living.

It is a symphony of the clattering of swords and vampiric snarls and the crackle of Sypha’s magic. Trevor is caught in the whirlwind, lashing out with the Morning Star, arm shaking with exertion. He ducks and dodges and moves together with Alucard and Sypha in a mockery of a dance. Shrieks echo into the night as his whip meets flesh, as magical fire wraps around them like chains, as a silver sword slices and stabs. 

Trevor isn’t sure how long they’d been fighting when his vision starts blurring. He feels a blow coming towards him and dodges too slowly, catching it on the side of his forehead, in the same place Sypha had just a few hours earlier. He’s disoriented, blood rushing in his ears and pouring down his face. The Morning Star is thrown from his grip and his breath catches as he pulls his short sword it’s sheath, lunging at the creature. It goes down screaming as he slices into it.

Just as they start thinning the crowd, Trevor dripping with sweat and viscera and exhaustion, another wave appears and he curses loudly. Despite his failing vision, he can see Sypha faltering, can see Alucard’s unnatural paleness and the shaking in his hands. It hits him, then, like jumping into a river in the middle of winter. It chills him to the bone and makes his heart clench with an emotion he does not want to name. He fights with a renewed vigor, if only to make time.

He’s starting to lose it, lose time, lose himself to the repetition of slashing and slicing and stabbing. Trevor is running on instinct, now, to protect the only two he could call his friends, his partners, something more than that, something they have yet to speak aloud.

No matter how many they cut down or burn to an ash, more keep coming, and it’s _too much_.

“_Go_!” He finally shouts, as their backs brush against each other, “I’ll cover, just _get out of here_!”

Alucard snarls, not even forming words as he lashes out to bring down the monsters in front of him. Sypha is screaming as she conjures more flames, more ice shards, weaker than before.

“We are _not_ leaving you!”

Trevor’s sight darkens and blurs and he yells as claws or a sword catches him in the abdomen. He’s sent stumbling, trying to right himself only to pitch forward as something hard hits the back of his head. The ground comes flying toward his face and, like the dumbass he is, he tries to stop himself with his hands rather than rolling into the blow. Pain lances up his wrist and into his forearm and he _knows_ he’s fractured something. Vertigo and nausea pull at him. The world tilts and he retches despite not having eaten for more than a day, now. He scrambles up after expelling the remainder of his stomach bile, switching his short sword to his uninjured hand and moves.

He slashes out, bisecting the palm of the creature reaching out towards him. It gives an otherworldly wail and Trevor bares down on it, stabbing forward and drawing the sword through its torso.

Time is acting strangely, in retrospect, but Trevor keeps fighting. He continues getting littered with scratches and cuts from creatures he does not remember getting close, and they appear to be getting wounds that he does not remember causing. Trevor can hear Alucard’s pained hisses and see the aftereffect of red eyes and viscera smeared fangs, of bloodstained claws. Sypha is shouting words that keep cutting off, words that his mind cannot seem to process despite knowing the languages.

He turns, trying to find the words to shout back at them and he is caught by a solid blow to his face and his vision goes black.

Trevor’s head is swimming. He barely feels the throbbing pain in his side as he collapses onto the hard ground. It’s nearly impossible to claw his way back up and the hell creatures take advantage when he gets halfway up. Something hard connects with the back of his knee and he falls, once again. He dry heaves after his head hits the earth with too much force, agony rushing through his side. 

Someone’s snarl rips through the air and Trevor is not sure if it’s Alucard’s or one of the beasts. Honestly, Trevor is too busy trying not to lose his guts or die to really pay much attention. He can feel himself getting colder, something both Sypha and Alucard would attribute to how much blood he’s lost. That does not explain why the ground beneath him and the area as a whole seems to be gaining a chill.

His senses are completely shot. The earth beneath his hands seem to be changing between warm, bloodsoaked dirt and cold, sharp twigs and leaves. His hearing fades from harsh battle to silence, a terrifying juxtaposition. He tries to call out when he hears the sharp clang of a sword on claws, tries to bring the creatures attention to him so that Alucard and Sypha can get out while they still can.

It works, God help him. Trevor can hear the beasts coming toward him, can hear their snorting and snuffling. He can almost make out Alucard’s raised voice before one of the creatures digs its claws into his clothes, into his skin, and tosses him directly into a tree. Trying to muffle his shout of pain is pointless, now, so he doesn’t. He hits the tree chest first and he feels the fracture in one of his ribs snap. Trevor chokes on his breath as he lands on his back and tries his best not to curl into himself. He’s gotten enough lectures from Alucard to know not to risk puncturing his lung.

He is not sure how long it takes him to realize he’s in the silence again. His eyes are hazed by pain and exhaustion and his own blood, but he can still just barely make out the head of spun gold coming toward him, the moonlight above casting a halo onto Alucard-- no, Adrian. Best he can tell, they’re alone, and Trevor always did hate keeping up pretenses. Alucard with monsters and Adrian when it was just the three of them. Carmilla would dig her claws into any advantage she could get, and he was not about to hand one out that easily.

Adrian is approaching him, his shadow tall and imposing and Trevor feels cold and numb and _angry_. Sypha isn’t with him. _Sypha isn’t with him_. He tries to catch his breath to speak but ends up coughing, body rocking with searing pain.

All the same, he manages to gasp out his words through the pounding in his head. “_Go back_. Please. _Please_, you have to. Sypha… _Please_, go back. Go back for Sypha, _damn you_. _Leave me_, get her, _please_.”

He stops before him and it’s all Trevor can do not to let a sob escape. _Why_ was Adrian doing this? Why would he leave Sypha and take _him_? Trevor knew he was self sacrificial, but Sypha was more important, especially now. But, no, Adrian is standing several paces from him, not coming closer, not saying anything.

Trevor moves his good hand to his wound, gripping it to feel _something_. Anger and pain are making tears spill down his face and he grits his teeth. His thoughts are swirling and clouded and he feels his grasp on consciousness begin to clip and fade.

“_Fuck_,” He rasps and wheezes, “_Go_! Find Sypha!”

It’s too much. _Sensory overload_, he hears Adrian tell him, that one night months ago. It is an overload, the pain and the cold and the emotions all wrapped up into one.

Adrian takes a step forward, an angelic figure cut by moonlight, but his shadow stops him from moving any closer. His lips part and, “Who is Sypha?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> changed title from "vita et mors et renascentiam" to onerariis tuto! my latins probably still shitty bc i havent studied it in five years but oh well!

“Who is Sypha?”

The man’s face crumples at her words. She can see him trying to focus on her face, but he’s clearly disoriented; probable concussion, with how much he’s repeating himself. With the aid of the light from the full moon, Lisa can see that his pupils are asynchronous and she’s itching to take him back to her abode, to get him somewhere warm, but Vlad’s hand on her shoulder is causing her to pause. Something about this man is clearly unsettling him but, frankly, he is already half-dead and bleeding out and she doubts he could even crawl towards them if he wanted to. 

“Can you tell me what this Sypha looks like?” She asks softly, slipping out from under her husband’s hand to move closer.

His eyebrows draw together, prompting the wound on his temple to spill more blood. Blue eyes flicker over her face and a desperate, confused look spreads across his features. He seems to be mouthing words that Lisa cannot make out, and appears infinitely more frustrated before he finally gives voice to his words.

“You _know_. You know, Adrian.”

The air is oppressive as both she and her husband freeze at their son’s name. She’d found it odd that he had been speaking to her as if he knew her, of course, but that could easily be passed off as the man being delirious from blood loss. Now, she can feel the tenseness of her husband all the while being steps away from him and she thinks, maybe, he had been right to be wary of the injured man. Lisa knew her son resembled her more so than his father, but to be completely mistaken as him? It is strange, and doesn’t say anything good about the man’s mental state. 

The man, however, does not seem to pick up on their wariness.

“Sypha… Adrian, please. Go. Go back. _Leave me_.” He’s all but begging now, the hand over his abdomen wound spasming and clenching, “Not enough magic, Adrian, _please_.”

Clearly, he is not a man of the Church’s God, or perhaps simply not judgmental, rare as that is. Lisa is more concerned by the sheer desperation the man is exuding, and more than a little suspicious as she evaluates their surroundings.

By all signs, it seems as if the man was simply dropped from the heavens; no obvious foot prints, no splatterings of blood, no indication of any sort of struggle. All she can see is broken bark, shiny with blood, on the tree that the man is lying at the base of, and the rapidly growing pool of blood surrounding him.

The man is, quite frankly, a mess. Injuries range from shockingly fresh, to hours old, to possibly weeks old, some of which seem to have been aided by magical healing; Lisa did not know magic, could never quite wrap her mind around _creating from intent alone_ rather than following facts and rules, but she knew enough to recognize the signs. She is not necessarily a betting woman, but she would be willing to say that the man’s _Sypha_ had been the one to heal him; which, possibly, could explain some of his mutterings.

Mutterings which have swiftly become unintelligible, but still carry the same panic and anguish as before. The man is well on his way to hypovolemic shock and Lisa knows she needs to move, now, because preventing shock is always better than treating it. 

She shakes off Vlad’s unsettled silence, suppresses her own apprehension, and approaches further, stripping herself of her heavy woolen cloak. She knows it will be unsalvageable after this, but it’s worth it, she decides as she kneels and drapes the fabric over the man, moving her hands to the back of his neck to ghost her fingers down his spine, feeling for inflammation or any obvious injuries. 

Lisa is relieved and quietly thankful that the man does not put up a fight at her touches. Even the most relaxed people in Lupu were, at the very least, mildly uncomfortable and skittish during examinations. The man before her is perhaps more at ease than before, as if her checking for unseen injuries was a regular occurrence for him and that was… unsettling.

She tries to push the thought out of her head; most healers would rather infect their patients further with pre-used leeches than check for actual injuries, and that, combined with the fact that he knew an _Adrian_ and mistook her for him… It was better to think about it after the man was stabilized.

She finishes her assessment of his spine just as the man falls silent. He doesn’t have the limpness that indicates having lost consciousness, not yet, but his eyelids are heavy over his striking blue eyes and he stares at her with an odd intensity as she pulls away.

“I’m going to take you back to my home to help with your injuries,” She explains, meeting his gaze, and she’s nearly relieved that he seems seconds from passing out, “My husband will help me carry you there. It’s imperative that you not struggle; you could injure yourself further if you do. Do you understand?”

The man is unconscious before she finishes her question. Lisa lets out a breath she didn’t realize she had been holding, and glances back to her husband, who is still standing where she left him.

“Vlad?”

He’s quiet and unmoving for several heartbeats, and the pause makes her frown. She knows he saw just how serious the man’s injuries were, and knew that _he_ knew it was a matter of urgency.

She opens her mouth to prompt him into movement, but he speaks before she can.

“I will carry him, my love, but I need for the weapons to be removed. Please.”

Her frown deepens, but she shifts her cloak and goes about removing the man’s weapons despite her husband’s lack of manners. 

A leather whip, a short sword, and a handful of throwing knives, every one of which _hums_ in her hands with the telltale resonance of consecration, and Lisa suddenly understands Vlad’s unease. 

The man is a hunter. A good one, if his multitude of weapons says anything. An experienced one, too, based on just how many hits he had taken before he’d fallen; experienced, yes, but also foolhardy and alone. 

Lisa will never admit it, but the idea of a hunter _knowing her son_ nearly makes her panic. It is only recalling his—possible—easy familiarity with the Adrian he thought that she was that soothes her anxiety, a familiarity that had not been tinged with hatred or even mild dislike. He had only been angry at _Adrian_ when it had appeared that he’d left _Sypha_. The man had also seemed worried for a magic user, whether a magician or a witch she wasn’t quite sure yet, but that spoke clearly of a level of tolerance most hunters would never even consider.

She pushes the thoughts from her mind as she fixes her cloak over the man once more. Vlad is at her shoulder in an instant as she shoves the knives into her satchel and shifts the sword and whip to sit more comfortably in her arms. 

Vlad picks the man up with an expression not unlike what he had worn years ago when a young Adrian had gotten absolutely covered in mud, hay, and many other unspeakable things when he had fallen from a horse; it is a look of utter revulsion and Lisa can barely hold back a laugh as her husband’s nose twitches and wrinkles. It makes her feel lighthearted, regardless of the man’s condition.

Despite his clear disgust, Vlad is surprising gentle with the hunter as he carries him back to her home, for which she’s thankful.

It’s almost eerily quiet as they make their way back to her home, Vlad’s long strides making her all but run to keep pace with him. She is mentally outlining all of the supplies she’ll need as she hurries alongside her husband, both those already in her stores and those she’ll need to send Vlad back to the castle for. A strong coagulant, for sure, though she will have to filter out those which have garlic, just in case...

They reach Lupu not long after and, as per usual for this time of night, there is not a single villager out and about. A quick glance assures her that all of the candles in her neighbors’ windows are blown out and that they are not being watched. It is short work, after that, to get the hunter set up in her treatment room towards the back of the house. She places the weapons and her satchel on one of the tables in the room before gathering supplies from her stores and a multitude of clean rags.

Vlad starts a blazing fire in the hearth without question, something that she’s incredibly grateful for as she begins removing the man’s clothes to better examine and clean his wounds. 

Lisa cannot help but pause as she removes the tunic. Dozens, or perhaps hundreds, of scars litter the man’s tan torso and arms, old and new alike, and some of which really should not have been possible to see on a living person. A few of the relatively newer, minor, scars, centered near his throat and the inner crook of his elbow, look suspiciously like-- something she should not be concerned with at the moment.

It is a flurry of movement, after that. She goes through countless bowls of water and rags through the following hours, stitching and cauterizing when necessary. The hunter’s wounds had clotted without much assistance needed, thankfully, and only the slash on his abdomen was truly causing her trouble. The quickness of his healing is something she quietly takes a note of; a regular human, by all means, should have been dead, shouldn’t have had so little trouble after losing so much blood, should have still been freely bleeding. Not to mention, she could have _sworn_ the man had at least had fractured, if not broken, ribs, but she couldn’t find any indication of it. Perhaps it’s simply a _hunter_ related thing, as Vlad has yet to bring it up as he oversees the man’s treatment.

Despite the clotting of his blood and the suddenly not fractured bones, it becomes obvious as his heart continues to beat rapidly that he’s only becoming more dehydrated as the minutes turn into hours despite the water she’s forcing him to swallow and Lisa finally gives her list of supplies needed to her husband, only to be denied sharply.

“_Vlad_,” Lisa all but snaps at her husband in response, eyes narrowed as she cranes her neck to look up towards his face, “He’s half-dead and you _know_ I can fend for myself.

“He is a _Belmont_\--”

She scoffs, “I don’t care if he was the Pope himself! He is my _patient_ and I will not let him die while I could have done something to save him. I will make sure he does not make the mistake of attacking me.”

It takes several minutes of back and forth banter for her husband, who is truly acting more like a child than a man, to relent and reluctantly agree. It takes longer still for him to _actually_ leave. She rolls her eyes as Vlad, in bat form, disappears through the open window in a huff. 

She understands his concern, of course, but he knew that she hated being treated as incompetent. Vlad is, simply put, overprotective and more than a little bit of a worrywart; Lisa has always felt there was an underlying reason, one that he has never told her but it’s fairly easy to guess at, unfortunately.

Shaking her head with a sigh, she brushes that aside and turns her attention back to the man before her.

The sun has risen by the time she’s finished applying salves and bandaging all of the wounds, other than the still slowly oozing gash on his abdomen. That is truly her only concern now, besides his dehydration, but both would be solved after Vlad delivered the necessary supplies. Which, with a quick glance out of the window, would not be for a while yet.

She goes about her morning after assuring herself that the man, Belmont, is as stable as he’s going to get, at the moment. Changes out of her bloodstained clothing, feeds the fire, makes herself a small meal and eats it. She checks on the man multiple times throughout, gently forcing him to swallow water by holding his head up and massaging his throat. Only once is the man the slightest bit aware, and during the few minutes that he’s conscious, he has a hazy look of confusion and recognition on his face.

It continues like that for the rest of the day. Lisa chances quick naps when she can, never resting for long before going back to check on the hunter. He manages to stay somewhat cognizant, though still dazed, just long enough for her to help him eat a light stew. None of his mutterings from before are present. He stays silent as he watches her, as he takes in his surroundings and the ways out of the room with a look of almost-dread. Thankfully, he does not try to move.

Belmont seems oddly resigned, the one time he speaks that day.

“I’m dead, aren’t I.”

Lisa is startled into a laugh at the subdued petulance and tries to correct him but the man is already losing himself to exhaustion.

“No,” She says anyway, just in case he can still hear her, “No, you very much are not.”

He does not wake for the rest of the day, not even when Vlad returns after the sun had fallen.

She places a hand on her husband’s neck to draw him down for a kiss. He acquiesces simply enough, returning the kiss gently and briefly resting his forehead against her own. Another kiss, chaste and grateful, and she draws away, relieving him of the supplies he brought.

It is quick work to disinfect the skin on the inner crook of the hunter’s elbow and slide the needle into a vein, close to one of the crescent shaped scars. She hangs the bag of saline solution on one of the hooks on the wall, next to the cot. She continues on, double and triple checking everything, before securely wrapping the point of insertion with a bandage in case the man jostles it in his sleep.

Vlad watches over her, something in his eyes not unlike pride.

The next handful of days follow that pace; she tends to her daily activities, checking on the man who is swiftly doing better with the direct introduction of fluids into his system, treating the village people when they happen upon her doorstep. Vlad reluctantly agrees to watch over the hunter during the night so that she can rest; she is quietly thankful that the man never seems to wake in her husband’s presence, only when he is either alone or with her. Her supplies dwindle, again, and she sends her husband away to the castle. He still fusses, but it is nowhere near as bad as it had been the first time.

It is nearing dusk, when she is in the process of changing the wound dressings on her guest, that Belmont shifts suddenly.

“Adrian?” The man mumbles, half asleep but quickly coming to, and a handful of seconds later, the door bursts open.

Lisa’s head snaps toward the noise and—

Her son stands in the doorway, covered in dried blood, rips in his clothing, wild-eyed and desperate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a couple things to make a note of in this chapter:
> 
> 1) adrian fahrenheit tepes said dramatic bi rights (trevor and sypha said disaster bi rights)  
2) this was originally going to be twice as long but i decided to chop it because i want the chapter length to remain somewhat consistent. hopefully the end doesnt seem too rushed!  
3) lisa deserved so much more screentime  
4) how. advanced is drac's knowledge?????????? like. do future books just get randomly teleported into his library? does he get a new NCLEX-RN prep book every time a new edition is released??? does he basically have all modern knowledge except for computers?? what is the Truth  
5) speaking of NCLEX-RN. im a pre-nursing student so i tried not to go Too overboard on the medical shit but its also super hard not to. and speaking of which like..... trevor is a goddamn Miracle like the boy is stabbed in his HEART (or close to) and has a full on conversation with isaac WHILE HES STILL IMPALED in the game like!!!!!!!! my boy!!! what Are You. like im not sure if thats just shitty game medicine or Belmont Family Bullshitery or What  
6) the Best Girl gets the spotlight next chapter :)c


	3. Chapter 3

It is a split second decision, made in the heat of battle. It is a desperate thing, fueled with denial and rage. Sypha sees Trevor falter and fall, sees Adrian get weaker and paler, can feel her own energy waning.

It is a spell she had found on one of her curiosity driven expeditions into the Belmont library, one that was surrounded by warnings written in the margins. _Only for the most dire of circumstances_ it had screamed at her, underlined several times. _As a last hope only. **Dangerous!**_ All of the warnings were written in different hands, in different languages, which she had filed away as odd and something to look into _later_, but she had yet to have the chance of later. They had gotten word of Carmilla’s campaign not a week after, and had left the castle shortly after.

The spell, as best as she could translate it to, had meant _transport to safety_. Or, perhaps, to safely transport… or cargo security… The short description provided in the tome had simply stated _to be used to remove oneself and others from calamitous circumstances_, so the first translation was likely the closest.

In any case, the description fit their current position, and Sypha is willing to try just about anything to keep Trevor and Adrian from dying, from falling to the myriad of vampires and demons attacking them, consequences be damned.

It’s a demon raking its claws across Trevor’s stomach, just after he had tried to be selflessly heroic, telling them to _run_, that has her making her decision.

She _screams_, letting her fury fuel her flames, fire flickering _orange-white-blue_, tearing across the night and burning into their opposition, and she pants in exertion.

Sypha catches Adrian’s bright red gaze and words, feelings that she couldn’t possibly hope to voice to either of them are on the tip of her tongue but she swallows it down. It isn’t the time for that, now.

“I am going to get us out of here,” She tells him, instead.

His expression is heartbreaking and she feels warm at the pure _conviction_ in his voice, “I trust you, Sypha.”

She rolls her shoulders, sends a spike of ice through the skull of a demon that gets too close, and _begins_.

The words flow off of her tongue as if the spell was before her, rhythmic and heavy and full of intent. Battle rages around her and she assists, flames more red than white-blue and ice not as thick, all the while continuing her chanting. She can see Trevor on the ground, can hear matching snarls from both Adrian and the beasts around them.

Her volume increases as she takes in the amount of damage being dealt to Trevor, and she uses that; thinks of _safety_, of healing his wounds when they’re gone from this place, and she feels something take root in her magic.

The demons start to converge on Trevor and she _almost_ drops the spell, but Adrian is rushing to him, sword and claws and fangs bared and covered in blood and his voice is raised. A large demon reaches Trevor first, digging its talons into him and--

Sypha focuses on the three of them, on the sense of security she feels when they lean against each other in front of a fire, when their legs tangle and hair gets into mouths and their quiet laughter at Trevor drooling in his sleep and Adrian’s tendency to twitch in his sleep like a dog and Sypha’s own _definitely not loud_ snoring. She focuses on the warmth of _them_, sleep hazed and basking in sunlight after a long night of exploring libraries and feelings that go unspoken and not acted upon besides the exchange of heated looks and just the barest of brushes of fingertips, and she _breaks reality_. Pushes and pulls the energy around her, within her, feels it burn throughout her muscles and blood and bones, and she cannot help but think _this isn’t as difficult as the castle_\--

In her mind’s eye, two mirrors shatter and converge as one, sharp edges rippling like water--

And then she’s falling.

Before she can react, before she can summon the magic to break her fall, Sypha lands flat on her back and, unbidden, a groan of pain escapes her lips. Voices are raised in surprised shouts all around her and by the time she can blink stars out of her eyes, there are hands on her shoulders and forearms and they pull her up into a sitting position.

“Sypha! What- what _happened_?” There’s absolute horror in… is that Arn’s voice?

Her vision finally clears and, yes, that _is_ Arn, and her grandfather next to him, and a multitude of other Speakers surrounding them. She _stares_— and then a smile is spreading across her face as it clicks, laughter bubbling up in her chest, warmth spreading throughout her. The spell from the Belmont library had _worked_. She _did it_! She grabs Arn’s hand and pulls him down to her and into a tight hug, regardless of her own freely bleeding injuries, feeling ridiculously _light_.

She looks around at the members of her caravan and— their looks of wariness and fear and concern and confusion? Her smile falls and Arn takes the opportunity to pull away from her, skittish, staring at her as if she had declared herself Dracula reborn.

“What? What is it?” She asks, feeling anxiety start to leech her previous joy away, “Is it Trevor? Adrian? Are they alright?”

Her grandfather looks weary in a way he hadn’t since Dracula’s hoards began attacking, a tinge of familial worry topping it off. He bends and places the back of his hand to her forehead, as if to check for a fever. She leans back, out of his reach, and frowns at him.

“Did you hit your head during your fall, Sypha?”

She feels her muscles in her shoulders and back tense, pulling uncomfortably at her fresh wounds and newer scars. Desperately, she wants to channel Trevor with a sharp _say what you mean_, but this is her grandfather and _something is wrong_. The Speakers around her are staring at her injuries, at old scars, with apprehension and their gazes make make her feel like something insidious is crawling under her skin. They’re looking upon scars that she _knows_ they have seen, scars she has told entire stories about around bonfires, with a sense of having never seen them before. It sends ice down her spine, dripping and running.

Sypha looks at each face before her, and her heart _drops_. A face that she had last seen pale, devoid of life, a face of a Speaker that died in Gresit before Trevor had arrived, stares back at her in fear when she meets their eyes.

“Grandfather.” Her voice is carefully flat, and she clenches her fist to hide the shaking, “Where are Trevor and Adrian?”

He frowns at her in concern, “I know no one of those names. Sypha, what has happened?”

Sypha closes her eyes, refusing to lose control. Her breath is only slightly unsteady when she exhales. _Transport_, the spell had said, but--

“What is the year?”

She hears whispers between the other Speakers, snippets of _prophecy?_ and several things that make her bite the inside of her cheek to keep calm, to keep from replying to their fear. Focuses on the small _thrum_ of energy in her core, depleted from the spell and the fight; focuses on the sting of cuts and the bone deep ache of bruises and she _knows_ that what she has gone through was not a dream, not a prophecy. Sypha has heard of those gifted with foresight, and not _once_ have they been physically affected. She knows in her heart of hearts that she has truly met Trevor and Adrian, that she traveled with them, that she aided in Dracula’s death; she knows and those who whisper could _kiss her ass_.

Her grandfather answers her, drawing her out of her thoughts, and she _pales_, eyes snapping open.

“Have the Speakers in Targoviste sent word of the burning of Lisa Tepes?”

The looks of shared confusion are answer enough and Sypha swallows, and tries again, just in case.

“Dracula’s wife?”

Blood rushes from their faces and Sypha can agree with the sentiment wholeheartedly. However, that is _good_. It hadn’t happened, not yet, and that means she still has time. She may not have meant to transport them to a safer _time_, but she would not overlook this opportunity. First, though, she needs to make sure Trevor is not bleeding out in a ditch somewhere. Adrian had seemed sturdy; easy enough to recover with fresh blood and a full day’s rest, so it is pointless to worry too much for him. She knows he can look after himself, unlike Trevor. 

“Someone will burn Dracula’s _wife_?” Aurel interrupts her thoughts, pushing a hand through his copper hair, his voice horror-filled, “Do they wish for us all to die?”

Sypha has a great many things to say about the Bishop of Gresit, previously of Targoviste, both from personal experience and from what Trevor has told her and Adrian. So, she does.

“The Bishop,” She says, rising from the ground and brushing off dirt and leftover viscera from the fight that once was, “Is a cockwart. He accused her of witchcraft for healing the people of her village in a way he did not understand, and he brought the wrath of Dracula down upon the entirety of Wallachia for his crime.”

She interlaces her fingers and stretches her arms above her head to work out the kinks in her back, wounds that had been starting to clot and scab being pulled back open at the movement. A few of the Speakers startle, whether at her words or her wounds, she is not sure.

“Grandfather, do you think it would be possible for me to borrow one of the horses?”

“It is not safe--”

Sypha feels bad about cutting off her grandfather, really, she does.

“The prophecy of the Sleeping Soldier has already come to pass. I do not intend to relive that if I can prevent it.” 

Truly, she only cares about Dracula’s death, or potential lack thereof, because of the impact it had on Adrian, having to kill his father, being _destined_ to kill his father. If she could change that, dull at least some of his pain, she would in an instant.

The whispers increase around her and she frowns at them. Had the Codrii Speakers always been such gossip mongers? Or had spending time with Trevor, who did not know the meaning of being secretive, simply dull her resistance to the hushed voices?

“If you wish to ask me something, ask me.” She says, blunt.

“How do you _know_ the Sleeping Soldier killed Dracula?”

Sypha taps a finger on the long, raking scars that mar her upper arm, surrounded by the faded, blistered imprint of her hand, “I was there. Adrian Tepes, son of Dracula and Lisa Tepes, was the Sleeping Soldier. Trevor Belmont, the last son of the House of Belmont, was the Hunter. And I, the Scholar.”

The whispers are silent, finally. Crickets and other nightlife _chirp_ and shuffle in the underbrush, and she turns her gaze to her grandfather, questioning. She does not think about the expressions of pure shock, of doubt, on the faces of her people.

“Grandfather,” Sypha repeats, “I am capable of protecting myself. If there is not a horse I can use, then I will walk. I need to do this.”

Her grandfather looks older, in that instant, and Sypha softens, reaching out and grasping one of his hands in her own. Squeezes gently, meeting his gaze.

“Trust me. Please.”

It takes more time than she would like for her grandfather to stop plying her with questions, a strangely knowing look on his face. He answers her questions in turn; apparently, one second, she had been in one of the wagons to grab something, and then she had fallen, clothing suddenly ripped and covered in viscera. In the blink of an eye, she had gone from unscarred and unscathed, to something that stepped out of a night terror.

She leaves with little fanfare after that, ignoring the distance the people she grew up with are giving her; simply hugs her grandfather and gives an incline of her head to the others, and Sypha leaves without looking back.

She rides for nearly an hour in the vague direction of Lupu, before deciding to pause. Dismounting, she ties the reins of her horse to a low hanging branch, giving him a gentle pat on his neck before taking several steps away and sitting on the cold ground in a flurry of robes.

Legs crossed, muscles relaxed. Sypha closes her eyes and raises her hands in front of her and _focuses_, bringing to mind the Chaldaic surrounding the mirror in the Belmont Hold. Magic crackles around her pointed fingers, trailing down her hands, her arms. It buzzes, latching onto the residual energy of _them_, and spreads. Spreads down her limbs, through her body and then into the ground.

Spreads rapidly, quickly, until… _there_. In the direction she had been travelling, a flare that was very distinctly _Trevor_ and, thankfully, he is still alive. So, no need to dig him out of a ditch, hopefully. Adrian is further away, in the area of… Gresit? But, no, he is leaving, travelling towards Trevor… No. Lupu. Adrian is moving towards Lupu, towards his mother. Sypha frowns and lets the spell fizzle out.

Knowing Trevor’s luck, he had probably already run into Adrian’s mother. Knowing just how _shit_ his luck was, that also meant he had run into Dracula. Adrian is probably a few days out, at most, and Trevor’s luck tended to carry over to them all and… Sypha is going to be late.

_Please_, she thinks towards them, _don’t do anything stupid_.

Sypha tries, hard, not to think about the fact that they will _absolutely_ do something stupid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yknow. when i was planning out this chapter. it was supposed to be fairly lighthearted bc thats just. sypha. and it was kind of supposed to be like "oh. oh no. i fucking broke time" but instead. *jazz hands*
> 
> so anyway i ended up rewriting the second half 8 goddamn times and im so tired lmao Hopefully its good?????? ive had two psych tests and a philosophy test this week and im kind of cottonbrained rn soooo
> 
> i tried to present the speakers in a way that was at least semi realistic???? i mean. sypha kind of. fell off the wagon completely fine and then they see her, expecting to see her like mildly dusty, but shes beat to hell with demon guts all over her? y e a h
> 
> anyway sypha is a badass and i have no idea what the limits of magic are in the castlevania-verse but shes gonna break them anyway!


	4. Chapter 4

Her son is staring at her as if she were a ghost about to disappear, about to vanish, never to be seen again.

Despite the blood that covers him, leather and cloth alike slashed open with clean edges, Lisa can see no fresh wounds on him. A long, gashing scar on her son’s chest is visible through the cuts in his shirt and her heart shutters at the sight. She knows, without a doubt, that if Vlad had not his father, that if he was not a dhampir, it would have easily been a killing blow. Overkill, really. The fact her son bares it with ease, as if he did not notice it, speaks of it being _old_, but it is much too healed to have happened in the time since he’d last come to visit.

A suffocating silence falls as Adrian takes a hesitant step into the room, taking in a breath as if to speak, and _freezes_, eyes finding the injured hunter stirring on the cot next to her, and Lisa has never seen her son look so stricken. It reminds her of the sheer desperation on Belmont’s face when she and Vlad found him, and it, uncomfortably, starts to fall into place. 

It is easy enough to see that her son is not as she remembers him. Adrian, when she had seen him last, had been quiet and withdrawn, all soft smiles and hushed laughs, but the man before her now wears his emotions clearly on his face, and without a doubt in her mind Lisa would say he knew the injured man well. It brings to mind Belmont’s half-lucid muttering towards _Adrian_ and it _scares_ her, that her son had been in such a serious fight that it had left him shaken and a practiced hunter nearly dead.

His eyes, wide and shadowed by dark circles, flicker between her and her patient, too startled to speak. Out of the corner of her eye, Lisa can see Belmont struggling, pushing himself into a sitting position and— he inclines his head toward her son, as if answering a question.

Adrian _breaks_, an expression she had never seen on his face, not unlike what one would see in a classical painting of a tragedy, pain forever captured in oil and on canvas, and he’s across the room in the blink of an eye, wrapping his arms around her and pressing his face into her hair. There is a gentleness to him, as if he was afraid of her breaking.

“Adrian?” She asks quietly, surprised, and is startled by the muffled, hiccuping _sob_ that escapes from him.

He’s _shaking_, from his fingertips to his shuddering breath in her hair. Wrapping her arms around her son, Lisa slowly rubs circles into his spine, something that had always calmed him as a child. He seems to wilt under the familiar, comforting pressure, and she makes a small _shush_ing sound. It is terrifying, seeing Adrian in such a state; he has not cried for _years_, longer still since she has seen and heard the full bodied sobs that wrack his body now.

She can still see Belmont through the curtain of her son’s hair that has fallen in front of her face, and he’s staring at them. His expression is nothing like what she would expect of a hunter; it is a soft thing, the edges of his lips curling ever so slightly, but there is an undercurrent of sorrow in the man for a reason Lisa does not know, and paired with the warm tears she can feel in her hair from her son, it makes her heart break.

It does not make sense and she needs answers.

They stand there, for minutes or for hours, and Lisa lets Adrian settle, lets his breathing even out and his shaking subside, before letting her arms fall. She speaks in a soft manner, as if she were soothing a panicked patient. Her voice is gentle, but she is firm enough in her words that she knows her son will answer.

“Adrian, what happened?”

He seems reluctant to pull away, even more so to answer her. His eyes stray more than once to Belmont, soft and filled with worry. Her son acts as if he were _lost_, caught off guard and his footing unsure. She tries to reconcile the two versions of Adrian; the one in front of her now, bloody and broken in all ways but physical, held together at the edges by something or someone, and the one she had seen not a few months before, attempting to act more mature to fit with his body’s age, still painfully _young_. Lisa finds that she can’t and she swallows her grief. Her son needs her, now, and she cannot afford to be selfish.

Adrian sounds broken when he tries to speak, “I…”

“We were ambushed by a group of vampires,” Belmont interjects, drawing her attention and subsequent suspicion, “Not sure how we got out of that one.” His voice raises in an inflection at the end, a question directed toward Adrian alone.

An odd look falls over Adrian’s face, partly long-suffering but mostly full of admiration, and his sigh clearly means something to Belmont. A similar expression overtakes him and he lets his head _thunk_ back against the wall, eyes closed and wry smile quirking his lips.

“Of course she did.” He mutters, rubbing a hand over his face, “Where do you think she ended up?”

“Likely with her family,” Lisa can hear the smile in Adrian’s voice, soft, and she can see him leaning toward Belmont like a sunflower to the light, can see that he is physically holding himself back from getting closer to the man, “I do not doubt she will track us down like a bloodhound, sooner rather than later.”

Belmont laughs, an unpracticed thing, low and slightly raspy, and she lets them continue, wrapped up entirely in each other. It’s as if she has completely disappeared from the room and it settles oddly within her, makes her feel out of place, but it gives her the chance to _think_, to _process_. Something is _off_, that much is clear. 

Vampires attacking them lines up with the clean gashes; other creatures tended to leave jagged edges when tearing into flesh or fabric, but only a vampire’s elongated talons could cause such a clean cut. Belmont is certainly not telling the whole truth, however. He’d had puncture wounds indicative of more rounded claws, so it could not have _just_ been vampires. And why would Adrian not tell his father immediately if he had been attacked? Every vampire was well aware that no harm was to ever befall either her _or_ her son. The fact that Adrian had been with a _Belmont_, of all people, should have not had any impact on that, unless there was an uprising Vlad had not told her about. A move against their son meant a move against Vlad himself.

She has too many questions, for her son and for the Belmont, and for the woman they spoke of, presumably the _Sypha_ from Belmont’s delirious whispering. Lisa shifts ever so slightly, and the noise dies in an instant. Adrian startles, head snapping towards her so sharply that she can hear something in his neck _crack_, and he looks pained. Belmont’s unnerving blue eyes are boring into her and she frowns at the both of them.

Adrian looks truly upset that he had gotten lost in conversation, that he had forgotten he stands next to her, and it makes something inside of her ache. Oft times, older times, he would lose himself in texts and tomes, and she would have to physically interrupt his reading. At most, he would look mildly guilty for missing a meal or not hearing her, but this full bodied _remorse_ was entirely new, and Lisa could make neither heads nor tails of it.

She clears her throat, “How, exactly, did you two meet?”

Truly, that one was giving her some of the most trouble. Vlad had ranted many times that Belmonts wreaked havoc, killing every creature they got near; only before the family was killed, of course. After, he spoke of them as if they had been a fond nuisance, and, _perhaps_, they had helped curb off some extra work that he now had to deal with. Obviously, the man before her had escaped the massacre of his family, but that did not explain how he came to know Adrian so well. If anything, she would have thought a Belmont would kill her son sooner than speak to him, based upon Vlad’s stories.

It is awkwardly silent for more than a few heartbeats. She just barely catches the--panicked?-- look exchanged before her son turns to face her more fully.

Adrian’s eyes are bright and almost mischievous, altogether too obvious of a facade, as he speaks, but she can still see the previous pain lurking just underneath, “He fell down a hole.”

Both his words and his expression come across painfully _forced_, carefully light and while he may not be lying _outright_, he is withholding quite a bit. It’s disconcerting. Adrian _has_ to be aware that she would never let that pass without questioning. His features are seemingly porcelain, the imprint of intended emotions clear but coming across as quite frozen, fake.

“Hey! It’s not _my_ fucking fault that you’re a shitty builder.”

Belmont’s response is less of an act and more of an attempt to distract her son. It works, ever so slightly, and some of the tension in his frame melts away. This banter seems to be a form of relaxation to Adrian, and Belmont clearly knows it, pressing in and getting him to respond, pulling him out of his thoughts. Whatever is causing Adrian unease, Belmont manages to make him settle enough that it is not radiating from him.

“Oh, please, as if you could do any better, Belmont.”

“_Boys_.” She says brusquely, though not unkindly, and Belmont’s mouth, which had opened to make a retort, snaps shut with an audible _clack_.

He eyes her, guarded as much as any feral animal, and she realizes that _he’s_ uneasy, that the banter was for him just as much as it was for Adrian. Belmont looks almost as if he is unsure of how to interact with her rather than her son. There is something in his eyes that speaks of… disbelief? It’s been present since the first time he woke in her home, she recalls; it had been accompanying the look of recognition at the very beginning, and again, after that, when he thought himself dead. Perhaps she could pass off the vague bewilderment as a hunter simply being surprised at Vlad being her husband, but it seemed so much more than that.

Belmont looks at her in a way similar that Adrian does, now; as if she’s simply appeared before him as a spectre, unannounced and unexpected. It eats at her; something about it is making her nerves stand on end. It is entirely disconcerting, she thinks, that Belmont had looked upon her with recognition and assumed he had died. Something in her mind is so close to making a connection, but it is just barely out of her grasp.

Lisa knows, deep down within herself, that she will not be getting any straight answers from either of them. There is, however, no harm in trying, to keep them talking in hopes something slips. She is perfectly aware that she is smart, that she is observant, but it seems as if Adrian had forgotten, based upon how much she has already gleaned.

“Thank you,” She says, and Belmont relaxes minutely, as if he had been prepared for her to lash out and been assured she would not, “Adrian? Would you like to introduce me to your friend?”

Adrian blinks at her, looking mildly taken aback. Whether at her easy acceptance of his non-answer or that she did not know the hunter’s full name, she is not sure; it raises her suspicion, again, claws away at the back of her thoughts.

“I, ah. Mother, this is Trevor Belmont. T— Belmont, this is my mother, Lisa Tepes.” 

There is a slight pause between in between introductions, and she catches the slight stutter, the stumble over names. Clearly, he had been about to refer to the man by his given name, only to decide otherwise.

Trevor inclines his head deeply, more formal than she expected, more formal than Adrian had expected, based on his wide eyes. “Ma’am.” He’s terribly awkward, as if out of practice, but there is a glint in his eye that lets her know he is completely aware of how high up she truly sits, how much sway she holds over her husband and, therefore, his court.

Lisa is not a naive woman, clueless as to the true nature of her husband. She had been fully cognizant of exactly what kind of man Vlad was before she married him; she had not been blind, walking past scores upon scores of skulls on pikes. She’d held and read tomes bound in skin, human and otherwise. Her love for Vlad Dracula Tepes was in spite of it all, but she would be a fool to not acknowledge his past, his present, and his future, the ever looming weight of what he is capable of. There is no illusion in her mind that he is still the same man that he had been when they first met, though perhaps with a touch more understanding of humans.

She is entirely too used to Vlad’s court looking upon her with warped expressions of pity, to disregard her presence as nothing more than a weak, human pet. It is surprisingly inspiriting, to have her influence acknowledged, rather than being dismissed. There is a sense of irony that a hunter better understands her position compared to esteemed vampire generals; even more so that he showed more respect than them all put together, despite the fact that his ancestors would have killed her husband without a second thought if given the chance.

Waving a hand, she says, “There is no need for that. It is nice to formally meet you, Trevor, though I do wish we’d met under less dire circumstances.”

There is a pause and she can all but see the awkwardness, the discomfort rolling off of the two in waves. Nervous energy is there as well, in Trevor’s fingers tapping a beat on the fabric of the cot, in Adrian’s carefully timed inhales and exhales, and Lisa could pick up the clear hint.

“Both of you need to eat. Adrian, if you would?” She asks, gesturing toward the collection of clean bandages and salves, “I will be back shortly.”

Adrian startles and protests, “Mother, I should help you--”

She holds up a hand, “Stay, be with your friend. I can handle it.”

He wants to disagree, and Lisa sees so much of Vlad in the expression, in the furrow of his brow, that she cannot help the soft smile she gives him as she unabashedly ignores his objection.

Lisa leaves the room, shutting the door solidly behind her, and barely takes five steps before she hears the muffled “_This kind of spell should be fucking impossible, Adrian_.”

Belmont continues as she walks away, but she still catches his next sentence.

“Why didn’t Dracula use this when she b--”

A barely audible hiss and, “_Enough_.”

_Interesting_.

Another piece to add to the growing puzzle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you listen carefully you can hear me sobbing about having 8 papers due over the course of a week and a half. if i die bury me with my hard earned 3.89 gpa. also:
> 
> 1) im so impatient and bad at pacing myself that ive already written the scene where trevor realizes "oh fuck im in love with these dumbasses"  
2) inspo for how adrian acts is basically just “being so stressed that your brain bluescreens”  
3) i kept flipflopping between whos pov to write this chapter from and i settled on lisa bc i love her and i felt like she would provide an interesting perspective   
4) at least with syphas chapter, it was somewhat the same in every rewrite, but this one was Everywhere  
5) honestly with the amount of times ive rewritten sypha's chapter and this chapter i could make a gd novel of the scrapped bits  
6) the first draft of this included Buckwild quotes such as ""The only way demons would dare attack the son of Vlad Dracula Tepes would be if he had ordered it, and Lisa would _die_ before that ever came to pass."" and ""“_Fuck_,” She breathes, ignoring Adrian’s flinch and Belmont’s raised eyebrows, “I am going to _kill_ your father when he gets back."""


	5. Chapter 5

“_Enough_.”

He jerks back at the hiss, mildly affronted. In a rush of movement, Adrian is all but on top of him, a knee on the cot to hike himself up, a hand slapping over his now open mouth. He brings his other hand up, index finger resting over his lips and tilts his head, one ear facing the door.

Trevor just barely keeps himself from making a noise that would doubtlessly get him a heated look, and he swallows roughly, carefully still beneath him. 

Golden eyes close and his eyebrows furrow, listening intently. It is a solid half minute of a gloved hand over his mouth, of Trevor staring at the man above him while a scorching heat spreads in his veins, before Adrian lets both hands drop and he carefully gets off of the cot, trying not to jostle him or his injuries. 

“What the fuck was that for?” Trevor asks lowly, scowling, silently blaming his head injury on the memory of their first meeting and the subsequent hair pulling that the situation brought to the forefront. Now is _not_ the time to think about that. 

Adrian, thankfully, is still looking towards the door and doesn’t notice the flush crawling up his neck. 

“Mother had— _has_ good hearing,” He says, grimacing when he corrects himself, “She may have heard you.”

He groans a low _Shit_, rubbing a hand over his face, partly to stave off his exhaustion and partly to chase away the feeling of leather against his lips. When he opens his eyes, Adrian is staring at him with an odd intensity that makes his muscles tense.

“What are you thinking?”

A soft breath escapes him and Trevor can see him forcing himself to relax. He finds himself thinking that if Sypha were with them, she would be resting a hand on Adrian to reassure him. It twinges in his chest, something fierce and too tight, like a string of an instrument being plucked too sharply. He misses her, he knows; they both do. It has been a long time since they were apart from each other, much longer since it had been for this amount of time.

“Why here?” Adrian asks in response, and Trevor can’t help but think that was _not _what had been running through his head, “I heard Sypha’s spell; it should have taken us someplace _safe_, not… Not whatever this is.”

“Didn’t it?”

Adrian frowns at him in a way that he knows screams _elaborate_. 

“I mean, Sypha was too exhausted to heal me, and then I’m found by the only other person that could have kept me from…” _Dying_, he doesn’t say, because that’s an issue for another day, and moves on, “Whatever. Point is, I wasn’t anywhere near here before your mother died. So the spell worked. It took me somewhere safe. So, question is, why didn’t the both of you show up with me?”

It’s bothering him. The safest he’s felt in a long time has been with them both, so why did they get separated? He knows, without a doubt, that both Sypha and Adrian have his back in any circumstance, and that he would do anything to prevent _them_ from dying in turn. Trevor doesn’t want to toy with the idea that they might not consider _him_ safe, might consider him a risk to their own safety, but—

The look he gets in response makes him shift. It’s a look he knows they both give Sypha, often; one of reverence and a mild pride that he’s not used to being directed toward _him_. So. It’s not that they don’t consider him safe, then. It’s more of a relief than he would ever admit to. 

“Sometimes, you actually manage to say something smart, and it amazes me, Belmont.” Adrian’s lips are quirked, showing just a hint of fang, and Trevor rolls his eyes at him, trying to squash the warmth spreading in his chest. “I landed in Gresit, where I had not been at this point of time. Perhaps the spell considered safety a relative term and simply dropped me somewhere I once considered secure.”

Trevor doesn’t have the mind for spells, for magic in general, and frankly it hurts his head to try to understand-- or, perhaps, that was the result of getting his head knocked around by hell creatures and vampires. All he knows is that Sypha’s mastery of magic is terrifying and impossible and he’s been around her long enough to stop questioning what she’s capable of, but _this_ seems a bit extreme.

They lapse into a momentary, comfortable silence before Adrian seems to remember the order his mother had left him and removes his gloves, placing them aside to grab various items. Trevor tries not to relax too much into the familiar process of having him apply salve and bandages, only avoiding his gut wound due to the need of it being restitched, but quickly finds himself failing. He lets his head rest against the wall, losing himself in the repetitive motions, the flares of pain, the brush of cool fingers against his too-hot skin. 

He catches Adrian’s wrist, eventually, and makes him pause. 

“How are you holding up?” Trevor keeps his voice quiet, his grip gentle in case Adrian wants to pull away.

He doesn’t. 

It’s almost as if he were made of cracked porcelain, cracks that seem to be reaching further and further. His expression reminds Trevor of when he and Sypha had returned barely a month after leaving, a broken sort of hopefulness that leaves him breathless. Something had changed in that moment, settled comfortably in their bones, when Sypha had intertwined her fingers with theirs and led them further into the castle. He feels it now, curling heavy in his chest.

Adrian shifts his hand, wrapping his fingers around Trevor’s wrist in return.

“I—,” He swallows, pained, “I want so badly for this to not be temporary. I don’t want this to— to be undone.”

Trevor tightens his grip in what he hopes is a reassuring manner. He knows he’s not the best at offering comfort, but he does what he can and it’s worth _something_, even if it’s just a roll of the eyes and a quip about incompetence. The bottomless, icy well that is Adrian’s sadness, the one Sypha had spoken of in the dark so long ago, is creeping up with sharp claws and long teeth and he’s not going to let that overtake him again.

So, he grasps at his wrist and tugs lightly. Adrian follows the meaning behind it easily enough and sits on the edge of the cot without letting go. 

It is almost unfair, the way he manages to sit directly in the last beam of dying sunlight. It casts warm shadows over his pale face, highlighting the smoothness, the unnatural beauty. His eyes are all but glowing in the haze of orange-pink filling the room, a breathtaking mix of humanity and _other_. Trevor can even overlook the flakes of dried blood standing in stark contrast across his skin, flicked throughout the hair that’s falling into his face, staining his shirt that is somehow still holding up, despite the damage. If his free arm weren’t connected to the contraption he vaguely recognizes from their time in the castle, he would be reaching up to tuck the hair behind his ear.

The unexpected, inexplicable softness he feels makes him wish Sypha were next to him, her head resting on his shoulder; it’s almost cruel that she isn’t here-- yet. She isn’t here _yet_. Trevor knows there is no way she didn’t come back, despite what his worry makes him believe. He also knows _her_, and he’s certain she wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to lessen Adrian’s grief.

“Are you underestimating Sypha?” Trevor asks, instead, because words are hard and he just wants to keep Adrian from looking so God damned _broken_. “She would waltz into Hell and use the Devil’s own ass as a footstool if it meant making you feel better. She won’t _let _this be temporary.” 

His voice is quiet, softer than he intends, and his heart beats a heady tattoo in his chest. The coolness of Adrian’s skin on his is more of a comfort than he remembers, but it is understandable, as his mind is still hazed with exhaustion. At least, that’s what he tells himself.

“Your eloquence _astounds_ me.” He deadpans, but he’s _smiling_, so Trevor considers it a success.

Adrian’s smile, the fact that he’s relaxing, the fact his thumb is stroking over one of Trevor’s scars with a gentleness that brings that warmth in his chest roaring back, makes it all the more angering when they both _feel_ the overpowering presence at the edge of their awareness.

His muscles tense in an instant, letting go of Adrian’s wrist to reach toward his whip which _isn’t at his side_, and he knows he’s just pulled open _so many_ of his wounds. Adrian’s smile has dropped, his back ramrod straight and Trevor hears the telltale _shink_ of his sword being unsheathed. He half-expects to see Sypha’s flames flickering out of the corner of his eye and tries not to feel too panicked when he’s reminded she’s not there.

They wait with bated breath in an uncomfortable silence.

His heart beats once, twice, thrice before the realization smacks them, ham-fisted, in the face. 

Adrian looks absolutely _gutted _and Trevor is completely prepared to kill Dracula again for that alone.

Trevor realizes, belatedly, that Dracula is still far off, slowly making his way closer; his presence may be overwhelming, but it is not the same _oppressive-turmoil ridden-choking_ as it had last been.

They lock eyes and his worry grows and gnaws at his insides. Adrian’s face is devoid of color, unhealthily pale, eyes seemingly sunken deep into his skull. Shadows tear at his skin, skeletal and terrible where they were once highlighting his beauty, and Trevor hates Dracula all the more for it. There is an ever-so-slight shake to his hands as he resheathes his sword; it makes him want to reach back out, to twine their fingers together in the way Sypha does and haul him out of memories that are now the present.

It is an aborted movement, just barely started before he realizes what he’s doing, and Trevor lets his hand fall back into his lap. It draws Adrian’s gaze, nonetheless, and he softens at the intention despite it not being followed through. He doesn’t voice the _thank you_, but Trevor can read it in the lowering of shoulders, the unclenching of his jaw, the way his fingers uncurl just the slightest bit. Golden eyes aren’t quite as pain-filled, as apprehensive. He can only hope it doesn’t come back. 

Time passes and Dracula is closer, now, likely in the house, but he’s stagnant and still. Trevor can’t hear anything, not yet, but he’s willing to bet Adrian’s mother is filling him in on everything he has missed in the time he’s been gone. 

Words left unspoken are exchanged through their eyes alone. 

They both know that if, for whatever reason, it comes to a fight, they aren’t making it out. It’s unlikely to happen in the first place, but they know better than to not consider it with their current disadvantages; Trevor’s too injured, Adrian’s going to have a hard enough time even _facing _his father, let alone fighting him, and Sypha’s _not here_. They’re fucked, this situation is fucked, and Dracula is closing in.

Footsteps and quiet voices pass through the walls and--

The door opens and Dracula has to bow his head and upper body to enter the room. Trevor feels incredulous laughter bubbling in his chest and squashes it in an instant. He had known Dracula was fucking _huge_, larger than life and un-death, but it was different to be fighting for his life against him in a massive castle that he could barely see the ceilings of and then seeing him in such a… _normal sized_, domestic setting. 

Time seemingly draws to a stand-still as Dracula comes to his full height, veritably dwarfing his wife, despite her being nearly as tall as Adrian and Trevor himself. He can almost see a superimposed image of Sypha’s fire burning the already crumbling sharp, aristocratic features to ash, can almost hear the echoing _clink_ of his wedding ring falling to the floor, circling and circling until finally stilling.

Trevor cannot even begin to think of what Adrian must be seeing as his father stands before them.

Dracula’s eyes are piercing as he examines him, probably noting the tenseness of his muscles and the freely bleeding wounds, the torn stitches. He has a look of faint disgust and Trevor wants to bury his fist in the vampire’s face, despite how little good it did last time. Exaggerated or a playful sort of revulsion from Adrian and Sypha was fine, he was used to it, even; but, having a man that tried to kill his son look at him like he was nothing but shit under his shoe is nothing short of _enraging_.

Trevor isn’t sure what expression is on his face, doesn’t care in all honesty, but Dracula seems to brush over him after that to speak to Adrian.

“Son.” 

Just his voice alone is enough to set all his nerves alight, to chase away any of the previous height-related hilarity. It’s unnerving and unnatural, how there is an underlying softness and concern to his tone and how it is so unlike what he’d last heard. Trevor feels the phantom heat of Dracula’s spell, his rage, feels Sypha’s back against his own rather than goose-down and cotton, can _hear _the God awful shriek of the metal of Adrian’s sword on stone. His hair is standing on end and he knows his heart is beating faster, fingers clenching on sheets because the Morning Star _isn’t there_, and his old leather whip is resting on a table across the room. He wants to-- he doesn’t know what he wants, besides wanting to drown in a drink and _not deal with this_. He’s been good about it, hasn’t lapsed back into old habits too often with Sypha and Adrian’s help, but this whole situation is _too much_ to process.

“Father.” Adrian’s voice is noticeably flat but Trevor latches onto the sound like a dying man, pulling himself out of his own thoughts.

His throat still burns, the skin on his neck still feels tight and raw and beads of sweat prickle uncomfortably hot and it feels like there’s an itch in his blood that’s calling for the bitter taste of strong booze, but it’s a little easier to ignore when he speaks. It’s a little easier to ignore when Adrian’s mother has him nailed with such a calculating look that it makes him feel as if he were a bug pinned down. Easier, still, when fucking _Dracula _is standing in front of him and he’s without a single fucking weapon or even a shirt. Trevor can be not-sober when the vampire lord _isn’t in the room_. Adrian needs him, anyway, and he doubts there’s anything more than watered down wine in the house; not that he could actually get up to go search for it.

Dracula takes a step forward and Trevor tenses further, as does Adrian. His hand twitches towards the sword he’d only just sheathed. A flash of surprise barely registers with him before the vampire controls it, and it’s gone before he can react to it.

“Be at ease.” Dracula’s deep voice is grating in his ears and Adrian looks like as if he were made of marble, so still as he is, “I will not harm the Belmont, so long as he behaves.”

_I’m not a fucking dog_ is on the tip of his tongue, behind clenched teeth, ready to be snapped out in a second, but Adrian’s mother beats him to it.

“_Vlad_.” Lisa cuts a scathing look toward her husband that reminds Trevor, eerily and uncomfortably, of his own mother.

Dracula looks as if he’s bitten into a lemon, expecting something sweet but instead being met with bitterness. It’s an interesting expression, similar to Adrian’s when they all manage to get doused in demon viscera; a wrinkling of his nose, the curling of his upper lip and a hearty flash of fangs. Dracula’s expression is much less endearing than his son’s.

“I. Apologize,” His speech is stilted and forced under his wife’s gaze, “Belmont, I will not kill you unless you attack my family first.”

Lisa raises an eyebrow at him, unimpressed.

Dracula clears his throat, “I will not harm you, last son of the House of Belmont.” He turns to his wife, as if asking _is that acceptable_?

It, apparently, is, if Lisa’s nod is anything to go by.

The interaction is so familiar that Trevor can easily picture Adrian, Sypha, and himself having the exact same conversation; it’s so _domestic_ that it makes his skin crawl. Dracula shouldn’t be acting so… so _human_, so utterly _normal_. He should be a snarling pit of desolation and anguish, he should be ash in the wind and a night terror come to life, not a husband looking upon his wife with an exasperated fondness.

Dracula looks back to Adrian, expression becoming less soft as he takes in the remnants of damage, “Come, my son. We need to discuss who attacked you, and we best give your mother space.”

Adrian is clearly, painfully, reluctant, and he looks almost mechanic as he follows his father without a word, glancing back as he steps through the doorway.

Trevor wants to say something, anything, but knows he can’t; he doesn’t even know what he _could _say, doesn’t even know where to begin, and certainly not with everyone in earshot.

A throat is cleared and Trevor jerks his gaze away from the doorway and back to Adrian’s mother. She still has a raised eyebrow and something in her expression makes his stomach _drop_, for a reason he can’t place. 

It is then that he realizes her arms are not filled with the food she had left for, but rather with needles, glass, and the less breakable, glass-but-not material he can’t remember the name of. He finds it more of disappointment then he really should, and his stomach rumbles in response. 

She huffs a laugh as she cross the room. Brushing aside Adrian’s gloves to set down everything in her arms, she picks up one of the glass vials containing liquid and one of the needles.

“This should help with the pain,” Lisa says as she inserts the needle through the lid of the vial, turning it upside down and drawing the liquid into the syringe.

She steps closer to him to plunge the needle in the glass-but-not tubing leading into his arm, and Trevor can’t help but notice the similarities between her and Adrian. 

They both have the same cowlick, the same flyaway curl falling into their face and always escaping any attempt to tie or braid it back. The curve of their lips, too; the rounded Cupid’s bow that occasionally catches both his and Sypha’s eye.

“Trevor?”

He blinks. “What?”

Both eyebrows are raised, now, and Lisa looks amused, a glint in her eyes that he’s used to seeing in Adrian’s, “I said that I’m going to have to undo all of the work Adrian just did to check how many stitches you pulled. I may have to remove them and restitch them.”

“Oh. Uh, yeah, okay.”

He’s more used to Sypha’s healing, to Adrian’s quick field-care, not the methodically outlined care that Lisa seems fond of. It’s understandable, he guesses, because random village folk are a lot more apprehensive about healing that’s not leeches and bloodletting; the calm, informative voice she uses was probably the reason it took so long for the Church to burn her, really. 

Trevor bites the inside of his cheek sharply at the thought. Thoughts of burning inevitably brought up memories and he was already having a hard enough time not thinking about drowning himself in booze. 

Pain flares as the needle and thread pierce his skin and he focuses on that, instead. It has already dulled some, not quite as sharp of a pain as it should be. 

He’s not sure how long he sits there, feeling the increasingly dull poke and pull; it could have been an hour or five or simply twenty minutes.

Trevor doesn’t know what possessed him to say it; it could be that he is exhausted and not yet recovered, it could be from whatever he’d been given, it could be from the stress of it all, it could be from his previous thoughts, but who really knew. Adrian’s mother is in the middle of finally stitching up his gut wound and it slips out before he’s even thought about it.

“The people are going to get you killed if you keep treating them.”

Her hands still. She looks up at him, making eye contact so intense and he wants to break it but he’s also a stubborn bastard, and so he meets her gaze head on.

“What makes you say that?” Suspicion, again, but he understands. This whole situation is fucked and he still hasn’t decided if Sypha’s lack of impulse control is a blessing or a curse.

In any case, he shrugs a shoulder at her, “Call it personal experience.”

Trevor is fairly certain, now, that the medication she gave him is loosening his tongue, but his body is in the least amount of pain it’s been in for a _while_, so he’s not complaining. The room lapses into silence, and he can just barely make out Adrian and _fucking Dracula_ speaking in another room. He can’t decipher the words, just the vague intonations and raises in pitch and volume. He lets his eyes fall closed, lets whatever is in his system finally take over and weigh down his limbs. Cotton starts to fill his ears and he doesn’t bother trying to listen in on the fighting anymore.

He’s not sure how long it’s been when she speaks again, and it sounds as if he’s had his head shoved underwater.

“Do you really believe they would have me killed?”

Eyes not open, because why would he open his eyes if everything is hazy anyway, he yawns.

“They already did,” He mumbles and, _fuck_, what is he _saying_, Sypha and Adrian are going to _kill _him, “Like my family. Fucking demons e’rywhere.”

And then he’s gone, just barely hearing the controlled _Adrian! _before he falls into the floating bliss of unconsciousness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I May be inserting too much of my personal experiences with alcoholic tendencies in here but Hey at least that’s better than S2 completely ignoring Trevor’s heavily implied alcoholism!!!!
> 
> also my chronic pain and college have been fucking Killing Me so I’m sorry that this is so late!! I just finished writing a huge paper about nonmonogamy for my philosophy class that basically just ended up with me saying “polyamory is inherently ethical. Source: your local polyam lesbian” and it’s making me want to change my major from nursing to philosophy/psychology/sex education (which also. Uh. I hate college y’all. I literally got Spit On the other day because a guy thought that I “look like a d*ke” so. Yeah. Yay only one week left?)
> 
> ANYWAY the light of my life, my wife, should be showing up Soon (and basically be that gif of the guy with pizzas walking into a burning room)


	6. Chapter 6

He casts one last look at Trevor as he leaves, chest tight and muscles tense. Blue eyes stare back at him, eyebrows drawn together and lips turned down, but there’s _something_ in his gaze that makes emotion claw at him, trying to tear its way out. He wants to stay, wants to hear whatever is waiting to be said, wants to stay by his side and not move until Sypha arrives.

His mother clears her throat and Adrian wrenches his eyes away and forces himself to continue after his father and it feels as if he’s left a part of himself behind. He feels as if he’s betrayed him as he leaves.

Each step he takes after his father is a death sentence. A cloak of dread settles upon his shoulders, weighing him down just as the world weighed down Atlas. Each passing second narrows his vision, shallows his breath, and he wants to throw it from his shoulders and grab Trevor and _leave_, wants to find Sypha and rid himself of every feeling but _them_.

It steals the air from his lungs and Adrian suddenly, heartbreakingly, has some insight as to how Trevor must have felt, stepping into the crumbling remains of his childhood home. A desolate feeling, aching bone deep inside of him; it travels through his marrow, through the very essence of his being, leaving something that is molten and yet frigid at the same time. 

Ghosts haunt them both, forever just in their peripheral. A chill down their spines, a gnawing hunger, a reminder of what they have lost and will never have again. Except—

His father stands before him and he wishes the expression of concern was simply a facsimile. It stings, how much he would prefer his father try to kill him, now, rather than look upon him with such parental worry. 

It tears and rends his heart. A hole has been opened in his chest, torn and gaping and bloody and Adrian can feel his pulse thundering, loud in his ears, almost as loud as Trevor’s, almost as loud as—

His mother’s heartbeat is strong, calm and steady in a way that had lulled him to sleep as a child. He’s been around enough death to perfectly imagine the drumming falter and sputter and slow into nothingness; her heart had likely been beating as quickly as a rabbit’s as the flames burned brighter and curled, drawing closer to her skin, bubbling and blackening the flesh as her screams rent the night’s air—

“Adrian?”

He _flinches_, both at his father’s voice and the taloned hand reaching toward him, skin greyed and flaking with ash and— no. His father reaches a pale hand toward him to set upon his shoulder, only to stop at his reaction. 

Adrian chokes. His breath is caught in his throat and an uncomfortable, roiling heat claws its way up from his abdomen, spreading throughout his shaking limbs. Fists clenched, he can feel the sudden bite of nails cutting into his skin and the welling warmth of blood. He cannot stop the feeling of self-degradation at his own weakness, cannot stop himself from feeling pathetic and cowardly and _broken_.

He committed _patricide_, and his sin is standing before him, staring back at him with eyes as red as his mother’s blood.

His eyes burn as if flames were held just before them. Skin too hot, clothing too tight against him, strangling his breath from him. His jaw, his _face_, aches and the feeling of static spreads against the surface; an uncomfortable tingling that rips and burns its way into his sinuses, and he feels as if he’s inhaled rimy water. 

Heartbeat pounding a war song into his skull, Adrian swallows, throat parched and sore, as if a hand has been bruisingly wrapped around it. He’s taken back to the castle, just after Sypha and Trevor had left him. He feels as he did, then, guilt and grief and pain a tangled mess inside his head, ready to collapse into his father’s chair. The same chair in which he had sat upon his father’s knee, a bouncing babe, too young to know the pain of losing one parent and killing the other. The same chair whose wood still held perfect impressions of a teething dhamphir’s bite, the impressions of which had not been sanded down and restained for sentimentality reasons. That man, the one who kept his love of his family clear and always ran his thumb over the indentations, is the man he chose to mourn, then. _That_ is the man that stands before him now, and he must remember that, no matter how easy it is to be brought back to their fight and his death.

If he could see his mother without absolutely collapsing, he could also, at the very least, speak to his father.

Adrian takes a deep breath, imagines Sypha’s hand in his, imagines Trevor’s palm resting, unmoving and reassuring, between his shoulder blades, and speaks.

“I apologize, Father. I haven’t yet slept since the attack,” He lets out the breath slowly, brushing his hair back and undoubtedly smearing fresh blood through the strands, trying to ignore the way his heart beats just a touch faster, “It was… unexpectedly difficult, and the circumstances afterward are still jarring.”

His father’s expression doesn’t change, not outwardly, but Adrian knows his lie by omission has been noticed. He had never been able to lie to his parents, and it should not surprise him so, but it does.

“Do you know of the spell used?”

His voice breaks him, almost unnoticeably so. Adrian can’t mask the immediate tension in his muscles, nor the uptake in his pulse, and red eyes narrow, ever so slightly.

“No, unfortunately. S--our companion has a wider array of languages and magic than I, and I did not recognize it, no.” It is not, technically, a lie. Sypha truly does know more than he does in the subjects of languages and various magics, and he did not expressly recognize the spell she’d used. He could understand it, yes, but that was not the question asked.

Trevor had made a valid point, earlier, in asking why Adrian’s father had not used the spell. Adrian knew the spell wasn’t contained in any tome that his father owned, because he would have certainly used it after his mother’s death, which left only the Belmont Hold as the origin of Sypha’s knowledge.

As always, Adrian is in pure awe of the amount of power Sypha holds, of how she seems to move and change the very world with merely her fingers. He has to do something for her, when she inevitably shows up; perhaps acquiring a kilogram of the cinnamon she so loves, or a large tome on an obscure language, or records of ancient magical cultures… or perhaps, simply, everything she could possibly ever want, because she’s given him a chance he never thought he would have again. Trevor was right in the fact that he’d doubted her ability and her overwhelming _care_ of him, of _them_, and he feels like a fool, but that same fear of ephemerality still claws at him, despite everything.

Traitorously, he wishes for the time after he committed patricide, before they were road bound once again, however short it may have been. Adrian craves the comfort, the hesitant domesticality they had fallen into; soft, bantering conversations shared over the meals they took turns cooking, loud griping as they cleaned both the castle and the Hold of blood and bodies and the quiet, shared baths after, late night library explorations in which they danced around one another with wandering eyes and stolen touches and _want_, only to end up tangled together as the morning’s warmth shone down upon them, regretful that nothing more happened but nevertheless content. It makes his chest ache with something he doesn’t want to name, something that he is _scared_ to name because he is more like his father than he ever thought he would be.

He lets the memories ground him, lets his father’s voice wash over him and he remains in the moment for the first time since he’s been in his presence.

“I see.” Vlad Dracula Tepes says and Adrian _knows_, “Tell me of the attack.”

It is an insidious feeling, knowing that what he’s attempted to keep close to his chest is exposed, but he’s grateful that there has not been any spoken acknowledgment. There is no point in continuously lying, he knows, not when his father has already made his suspicion clear, but Adrian is reluctant still.

He feels like a child all over again, an impulsive lie slipping from his lips and his parents watching, waiting for him to dig himself deeper until the truth, inevitably, comes to light.

Distantly, he hears his mother repeat Trevor’s name and a quick rundown of her actions, hears his subsequent bumbling, and has to suppress the smile that wants to curl his lips. It is not an opportune time to be distracted, but it brings him some semblance of peace, enough that he does not trip over his next words.

“We were perhaps a week’s travel outside of Braila…”

He spins his tale with all the grace of the great weaver Arachne, careful to leave out any details that would point towards Carmilla’s involvement; Braila, rather than Styria, leaving out the identifying features of the uniformed soldiers, making no mention of the beasts raised by the unwilling forgemaster. Just like Arachne, his hubris is his downfall.

His father is a calculating man, carefully meticulous, and he possesses a genius level intellect. Adrian knows this, has known this since he first became cognizant, and he’s confident that he has worked around the sharp eyes watching him closely.

“From what I can recall, we were ambushed by seventeen soldiers the final time...”

His heart drops at the unintentional slip of words and

“_The people are going to get you killed if you keep treating them._”

Adrian pauses, head tilting to better hear, words caught in his throat with a sudden panic, and he silently wills Trevor to not say anything more. Even through the walls, there is an underlying _worry_ in his tone that comes across clearly. He knows his mother will not let such a comment pass by without addressing it, especially not when there’s emotion driving it, so it is no surprise to him when she questions him. 

“_What makes you say that?_”

“_Call it personal experience._” Trevor’s muffled voice says, and their conversation is lost. 

Adrian’s chest aches. His father’s face is carefully closed off, but there’s just a hint of something that could be remorse lurking in his eyes. It is not an emotion he’s ever seen his father express and it leaves him feeling unbalanced and confused.

He’d found himself thinking of the parallels hundreds of times before, but hearing Trevor acknowledge it aloud causes a newfound wave of grief. In the beginning, during Gresit and after, the hunter’s discomfort around fire mirrored his own, showing no signs of being dulled in the years since the death of the House of Belmont. Only after being exposed to Sypha’s fire time and again had the unnervingly blank and far off look in Trevor’s eyes begun to fade. It went unmentioned and unspoken, slowly becoming less of an issue for the both of them with the knowing look in Sypha’s eyes and the care she took to reacclimate them.

Adrian’s own anxiety around flame had almost entirely disappeared, only to come roaring back with the death of his father.

“What age was the Belmont when the family burned?”

His father’s face is all but made of stone, voice strangely hard, and Adrian swallows. 

“He has never said it in so many words, but I believe he was twelve.”

Even then, Adrian is not certain; Trevor had always dodged the question with multiple answers, enough that he occasionally doubts that he even remembers how old he was. Despite the uncertainty, it is painful to say, to even imagine losing everyone at such a young age, and his father’s face _contorts_ with such a frigid fury that Adrian barely is able to stop himself from taking a step back. 

Disgust and rage twist his face into an inhuman expression. Razor sharp fangs are fully extended, a horrid red has bled into the sclera of his eyes, eyebrows are pulled together sharply, and there is an unholy light burning brightly in his irises. It hits him, then, that his father’s anger is moreso aimed at the Church and its members and less toward the injustice dealt to the House of Belmont. 

Dracula holds no lost love for the Belmonts, as far as he knows, but the brutality in their deaths has only strengthened his abhorrence of humanity.

Adrian knows that whatever leaves his father’s mouth next will be cutting and harsh and something he will undoubtedly disagree with. 

“Humanity proves once again to be nothing more than cowards, mere worms, ready to destroy that which they do not understand.”

His nerves stand on end as his father continues to lash out with a sharp tongue, cursing mankind as a whole, and Adrian’s rebuttal of _then why did you not help them, show them, like Mother_ has nearly left his lips when he just barely picks up Trevor’s heartbeat slowing, dropping nearly to the pace he’s used to hearing when the man is asleep. His mother’s stays the same until--

“_Do you really believe they would have me killed?_”

“_They already did._” Trevor’s voice slurs, “_Like my family. Fucking demons e’rywhere._”

Adrian freezes, mind working desperately to comprehend the words spoken. 

He’s already moving as his name leaves his mother’s lips, his father right behind him. 

He rushes into the room in an instant, only to balk at his mother’s sharp gaze. She stands straight, shoulders squared, and Adrian _knows_ he won’t be able to keep the truth unspoken for much longer.

His father is looming behind him, his mere presence in his blindspot causing panic to course through his veins, and he desperately looks toward Trevor to ground himself.

Contrary to the tension in the room, Trevor is sound asleep, head bowed and chin tucked to his bare chest in a way that Adrian knows will cause a crick in his neck. His face is smooth in a way that only comes about when he’s completely devoid of pain, which is a rarity these days, or when he falls asleep between Adrian and Sypha, something that is much more common. The teasing drawl of being surprised at the lack of drool is on the tip of his tongue and he turns his head to speak and get a muffled laugh in response, only to stop himself short at the lack of Sypha by his side.

His mother clears her throat, her frown deepening the lines in her skin caused by years of laughter and smiles. 

“Adrian.” She repeats, eyes burning into his with the intensity of the midday sun and just as bright, “Can you explain to me why your friend thinks me to be dead?”

The lie slips from his lips before he’s finished processing the question.

“You remind him of his own mother.”

He knows nothing of Trevor’s mother, besides the fact that she’d carried the Belmont name since birth. He knows not of her appearance, or her personality, or even of her name. Trevor keeps memories and knowledge of his family close to his chest, and Adrian and Sypha had only been granted the occasional piece of information; that Trevor was the youngest child, and the only boy of seven children, that his elder sisters and his father had taught him how to braid hair, and that he’d had longer hair as a child.

It is a risky lie, but he’d seen the passing looks of pained recognition, and he knew that his mother had seen them as well. Risky, but a passable enough lie, and for just a moment he thinks it has been accepted, that his mother will leave it be.

His heart drops as her face falls flat and her frown twists deeper. He is plagued by bright blue eyes staring into his, so similar but so different than Sypha’s and Trevor’s. She knows not of what Hell he has been through, what Hell _they_ have been through. He can rationalize it, he knows, that her concern is pushing her to seek the knowledge and he should give in, assuage the worry that is tearing into her.

Lying leaves him terrified, empty, but--

“Tell us the truth, Adrian.”

“I--” Adrian swallows roughly, before admitting, “I _can’t._”

She’s frustrated with him. He can see it in the lines between her eyebrows and beside her eyes, can see it in the tension of her jaw and hear it in the way her heart beats just a touch stronger and her temperature rises, staining her cheeks just the barest color of roses. Adrian feels guilty, knows that her frustration is born of worry and concern, but he _can’t_. He doesn’t know what will occur if he does and his own frustration and anxiety, clawing deep inside of him, tears at him.

“You _know_ that your father and I will do whatever it takes to protect you.” It is said with such _conviction_ and belief that it _breaks_ him.

It is like a slap in the face and it chokes him, wraps skeletal fingers around his throat and _squeezes_. Heat blazes in his throat and he lashes out before he’s realized it.

“But you _didn’t_!” His voiced is raised, snappish in a way that he’s never directed towards his mother before, and he flinches from her recoiled shock.

He takes a step back as she crosses the room in long strides and she slows to a stop in front of him.

His mother reaches up, cupping his face with her hands and gently runs her thumbs over his cheekbones, brushing away the tears he hadn’t realized he’d shed. A hand clasps his shoulder, almost uncomfortably tight, and, unbidden, his fangs cut into his lip in the moment of his surprise. 

Blood beads and before he can run his tongue over the new wound, his mother moves one of her thumbs to wipe it away. Her eyes flick to his father standing behind him, a frown pulling down her lips in a silent admonishment.

Despite her soft, soothing touches and sad eyes, her voice is strong and he knows that she will not tolerate his avoidance any longer.

“You will stop lying, Adrian, and you _will_ tell us everything.”

Adrian is, as always, a slave to his family’s wishes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW in the notes for irl death  
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This was. Incredibly hard to write. I didn’t really want this fic to get too heavy but I got about 400 words into this and then my grandfather had a major stroke and he passed away. So to put it plainly: my depression took a nosedive and it definitely manifested in this chapter and it was hard for me to even reread it to check for typos and sentence structure and how well it flowed so I’m sorry if there’s anything majorly wrong with it. 
> 
> But. Yeah. My original plan for this author's note was to ask if I should (re)make a tumblr account and possibly post scraps for this/interact with y’all/do short ask prompts/gush about how cute my cat and snakes are. Let me know if that’s a thing I should do? I was originally on the site from like. 2009-2017 and I’m sure my old account is still out there somewhere but I honestly don’t want to touch it with a ten foot pole so. It would def be a new account if I were to
> 
> As an end note: be kind to yourself. Do something nice for yourself today, even if it’s just treating yourself to a cookie or reading a good book or taking a hot shower. You deserve it.

**Author's Note:**

> i know. "Jay, why do you Only post time travel fics?" except. i dont Only post time travel fics. i post ghost aus too. and i keep my witch aus unposted, as always (which. i Do have a ghost au of castlevania AND an empath!trevor/witchy belmonts fic sitting in my google docs right now. yknow. just in case)
> 
> anyway. college (and the seven classes im taking this semester) is killing me and my life has been Really Shitty for the past month so i wanted to let it out somehow lmao
> 
> and every time i post a new fic im always reminded of just how Rusty my fucking latin is lmao
> 
> so uh. let me know if i should continue this??? i have like. maybe half of the next chapter written


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